Pin It And Do It - Holiday Edition, Part 1

So, so many wonderful holiday and craft ideas are pinned on my Pinterest boards. I was sure I'd be using a lot of them this year. Or, maybe not. Seriously, there is only so much time in the day. Still, I've managed to snag quite a few ideas this year as I decorated for the holidays. I've been doing essentially the same thing for the past few years and I only needed a little nudge to shake things up. Here are some of the ideas I drew inspiration from:

I'm always looking for a new way to display Christmas cards; I've probably put them up in a dozen different ways over the years. This idea looked like a fun way to keep them up and for them to decorative. But I didn't want them to be on every kitchen cupboard door. Instead I got some red and white ribbon and ran it the length of both of my pantry doors, using clothes pins to hold the cards and photos. I liked the color this added to the kitchen a lot without screaming "Christmasy."

I've got candles out all over my house, year round, in all kinds of colors. This year, I really pulled out the red and white in my decorating so those are the candles I pulled out as well. The problem with that was that the white candles, in particular, looked a little boring. Using this pin as my inspiration, I used the same ribbon from the pantry project to tie bows around several of the candles and I really like the way it ties things together. I may just have to do the same kind of thing for other holidays.

I love using pine cones in my decorating - in baskets, in glass bowls, made into wreaths, on my tree, and across the mantel. I've spray painted them white and gold. This year I used this pin as inspiration to turn some of them into Christmas trees. I love the different texture and color it adds to my collection of trees. I kind of drive The Big Guy nuts every fall when I won't let him mow until I've collected the pine cones that have fallen from our trees. But you can never have too many pine cones in my book!

This pin inspired me to pull out the pewter mug The Big Guy brought back from Williamsburg almost 30 years ago and fill it with candy canes. Once I had it full, it felt like it was missing something, but a sprig of evergreen tucked into the middle gave it more of the feeling of this picture. I really like the idea of using the things you already have in the house and making them work for Christmas. When the kids were younger, we used The Big Guys old train set and my great-grandmother's children's tea set to bring the childhood joy into our decorating.